Slightly Married

by Mary Balogh

  The carriages disappeared down the driveway.

  “I hope I am not inconveniencing you by staying an extra day,” he said.

  “No, not at all.” But there was a slight frown of incomprehension between her brows.

  She had, of course, expected him to leave with Wulf this morning. It was what he had said last evening that he would do. But he had lain in bed, unable to sleep again after awaking some time before dawn, the scene at the assembly rooms playing and replaying itself in his head.

  My home is Ringwood Manor. It is where my wife lives. It is where my heart will stay when I leave.

  When he had spoken the words they had not felt like a lie though he had assumed that they were essentially just that. Certainly they had been almost embarrassingly ostentatious. But he had been unable to get the words out of his head as he had tried to get back to sleep.

  It is where my heart will stay when I leave.

  . . . her foster children my own.

  They were not his own. He could have no interest whatsoever in them except perhaps for a natural concern for young children who had been orphaned and left unwanted and unclaimed by all their relatives.

  And then Cecil Morris's words had lodged in his brain and repeated and repeated themselves until finally Aidan had got up, dressed without summoning Andrews, and gone out to the stables to saddle a horse and take it out for a brisk ride into the sunrise.

  . . . tell me, Eve, what is Davy going to do for a father figure, so important to a growing boy?

  With the words had come images of the boy, thin and bewildered and bristling with menace in the nursery one evening, silent and passive in the carriage yesterday.

  . . . what is Davy going to do for a father figure . . .

  It is where my heart will stay when I leave.

  They were her children. Eve's. And Eve was his wife. How foolish now seemed the memory of his decision to marry her, to take her to London for the ceremony, to bring her back home, and to leave her. Just like a neat little military maneuver, soon accomplished, soon forgotten. He might have taken into account that he was a Bedwyn, and that Bedwyns almost invariably loved their mates. It was a tradition he and his brothers had snickered and grimaced over when they were boys. And Bedwyns loved and nurtured their children, even if they were overscrupulous about instilling notions of duty and responsibility in them. Not that any Bedwyns to Aidan's knowledge had ever had foster children to deal with.

  “It is a lovely day,” he said. “I thought perhaps I would take the boy fishing.” He felt intensely embarrassed as soon as the words were out.

  “Davy?”

  “I thought perhaps I would,” he said. “I assured him after our wedding that he was safe, and I encouraged him to think of himself as the protector of his sister and the other women here. When it came to the point, of course, he was not safe at all, and he could do nothing to protect anyone, even himself. I should have realized that he is a child and that he needs adults to spend time with him and do all the protecting until he is old enough to do it for himself. I'll spend today with him at least.”

  Her frown deepened, and at first he thought he had made a mistake, staying, forcing his company on her for another day, seemingly questioning her ability to nurture the boy alone. But he had misunderstood the cause of the frown, he discovered when she spoke.

  “You are kind,” she said softly. “Sometimes I doubt it. You make it easy to doubt. I did not even realize until yesterday that both you and the Duke of Bewcastle hide behind almost impenetrable masks. But you are a kind man.”

  “Merely because I have decided upon a day of fishing?” Masks? He wore no mask, did he? Did Wulf? Yes, actually he did, and she had been perceptive enough to see that. But not himself, surely? “You do not know much about men, Eve, if you believe it is a great sacrifice on my part to stay for a day of pleasure.”

  “Davy's father was a shopkeeper,” she said. “Not a particularly prosperous one. Yet Colonel Lord Aidan Bedwyn is making no sacrifice by giving up another day of his leave to take this man's son fishing?”

  “It is a lovely day,” he said abruptly. “You had better come too, Eve, and bring the girl. I daresay she and her brother would not feel comfortable being apart today especially as I am almost a stranger to them. We will take the gig and load a picnic basket up behind.”

  She had tipped her head to one side and was regarding him with eyes that were luminous and beautiful.

  “Go and have their nurse get the children ready,” he said, embarrassed, “and inform Miss Rice that she will not be teaching them today. Then you can go and give directions about the picnic basket while I see that the gig is made ready.”

  She smiled at him before catching up her skirt and running lightly up the steps to the house. He felt suddenly lighthearted, like a boy escaped from the schoolroom. He could not remember when he had last taken a day purely for pleasure. Was it to be a pleasure, then, spending a day with two young children, the offspring of a shopkeeper, as she had just reminded him? Teaching the boy to fish? Picnicking with them? And with Eve?

  He wondered suddenly if he would have stayed were it not for the children. Would he now be seated in the carriage with Wulf, comfortably immersed in a conversation on politics or some such thing? Or would he have found some other excuse to remain?

  He did not care to pursue the question. He strode off in the direction of the stables instead.

  It is where my heart will stay when I leave.

  THERE WERE A HUNDRED AND ONE IMPORTANT THINGS to do since she had been away for two weeks. Eve had always been conscientious about her duties as a landowner. And she had always accepted her social obligations too—to call upon her neighbors, to be at home to their calls, to visit the sick. But she would not even feel guilty about taking this day for herself, she decided. After all, it was not just for herself, was it? It was for the children. Her children. If she had learned something from the experiences of the last few weeks it was that giving them her time and attention and love was the most important thing she could do with her life.

  They found a quiet stretch of the river, on her land, but away from the house and well above the village. There, in a grassy meadow dotted with colorful wildflowers, blue sky and sunshine overhead, they set down the picnic basket they had carried from the gate where they had left the gig and went fishing. The horse had been let loose to graze in one corner of the meadow.

  They all fished for a while, Aidan with Davy, Eve with Becky. She tried to remember the skills she had learned with Percy many years ago. Aidan came and helped them once in a while and held his hands over Becky's on the rod after it had been cast, showing her how to keep it steady without tiring her arms too quickly. Becky tipped her head right back and gazed up into his upside-down face, bent over her own, and smiled—a sunny, untroubled child's smile. Aidan looked down at her and winked.

  It was a precious moment for Eve. How could she ever have expected that he would be gentle with children—that dour, powerful cavalry officer who had stood in the visitors' salon telling her of Percy's death in battle?

  But Becky soon tired of the passive game of fishing, much to the delight of Muffin, who scrambled up from his perch on the bank and bobbed off ahead of them to chase flies. Eve waded through the meadow with Becky, identifying the various flowers, chasing butterflies but releasing the only one they caught after gazing with some awe at its colorings, chasing each other and Muffin—though it was too hot a day to play that game for very long—and sitting down beside the basket to make daisy chains. Eve made one long one to go about Becky's neck and a shorter one for her to wear as a coronet. The small one Becky made ended up about Eve's wrist.

  All the time, while they played, while the child chattered on inconsequentially and sometimes sang softly to herself, Eve was aware of Aidan and Davy on the riverbank, engaged in the serious business of catching fish. Aidan explained quietly, she noticed, and patiently supervised while Davy did everything himself. Eventually they were both s
itting side by side on the bank, both in their shirtsleeves, silent most of the time, talking occasionally. Davy, it seemed to Eve, was talking far more than he usually did. Neither of them laughed or even smiled, but they both looked relaxed and contented.

  Almost like father and son.

  Why had he stayed? She had lain awake most of the night, steeling herself for the parting facing her this morning. She had not even pretended to indifference. She did not want him to leave. It was as simple as that. She was not ready—she never would be. And then morning had come and she had discovered that she was to be granted a reprieve. There was to be another day to spend with him—and the same anguish to endure again tonight and tomorrow morning. She had been almost disappointed by his decision to stay. The worst of the agony would be over by now. Though perhaps not.

  Undoubtedly not.

  “Go and tell Davy and Uncle Aidan,” she said at last to Becky, undoing the straps about the picnic basket, “that it is time to eat.”

  She watched Becky go and make her announcement. She watched Aidan turn and set an arm loosely about the child's waist and Becky wrap a chubby arm about his neck and lean into his broad shoulder. She watched Davy look up at her and draw her attention to the small fish he was reeling in.

  Eve hugged her knees and very deliberately tried to impress the scene upon her memory. By tomorrow—But she would not think of tomorrow.

  It was not time to eat, she soon discovered. In addition to the thick rounds of fresh bread and butter that Mrs. Rowe had sent with generous slices of cheese, they were going to have freshly cooked fish.

  “Why do you think Davy and I have been fishing all morning?” Aidan asked when Eve expressed her surprise. “We have been slaving and wearing our fingers to the proverbial bone in order that like real men we might feed our women. Have we not, Davy?”

  There was no smile on his face, but it was unmistakably present in his voice. He sent Becky in search of some large, flat leaves while he and Davy went foraging for twigs and sticks with which to build a fire. He might have accomplished it all himself in half the time it actually took, Eve thought, tickling Muffin's stomach since her participation had not been invited, but he let the children do almost everything themselves, including building the fire and lighting it with the tinderbox he produced from the coat he had carried with him. He taught them how to clean and prepare the fish and watched them do it, and then he allowed them to set the fish out on the leaves and wrap them. He set the leaves in the fire himself.

  Eve clasped her hands about her raised knees when her stomach rumbled with hunger, but she made no protest at the lateness of their meal. Both children were absorbed and enjoying themselves more than she had ever witnessed before.

  “Papa built us a fire once,” Davy said.

  “Did he, Davy?” Becky looked up at him wide-eyed.

  “And we roasted chestnuts,” Davy said, “and Mama scolded him for letting us burn our fingers.”

  “Mama let me brush her hair,” Becky said.

  It was a brief exchange, but it brought tears to Eve's eyes and warmth to her heart. Although she had always encouraged them to remember, they had never before reminisced in her hearing.

  “I believe,” Aidan said, “the fish is ready. I'll take it off the fire and open the leaves, and Aunt Eve will judge when we may eat it. I am not going to risk having her accuse me of letting you burn either your fingers or your tongues.”

  They stuffed themselves with fish, which tasted slightly burned and delicious, and with bread and butter and cheese, jam tarts, and currant cakes. They refreshed themselves with lemonade. And then Aidan stretched out on the blanket with a sigh, one booted foot bent at the knee, one arm, its shirtsleeve rolled up to the elbow, draped over his eyes to shield them from the sun.

  “This,” he said, “is absolute bliss.”

  The children went off together with Muffin to explore the meadow. Eve packed the remains of their picnic back into the basket. Aidan slept, his breathing deep and even. Eve gazed at him, storing more memories. She would not lie down herself, sleepy as she felt. Someone had to keep an eye on the children. Besides, she did not want to miss a single moment of this day.

  This is absolute bliss.

  Yes, indeed it was. It was also a day of pure agony.

  It was all so very like the family life she had always dreamed of—first with Joshua, then with John. And now she was having a brief glimpse at what such a life would be like—with someone else's children and a husband who was going to leave her tomorrow. Perhaps it did not matter. They were her children and he was her husband, and today they were together as a family. Perhaps today was all that mattered. Perhaps today was all anyone could expect. Perhaps tomorrow was always an illusion that never came.

  “I suppose,” he said, his voice breaking into her reverie, “that coming from an urban area of shops and businesses, Davy does not know a great deal about the country. Do you take him about the home farm, explaining things to him, letting him get his hands dirty, so to speak?”

  “I never have,” she said. “I have always wanted to keep them close to the comfort of home. They were so thin and pale and listless when they first came here, Aidan. It would have broken your heart to see them. But perhaps I should?”

  “He will need to be prepared for some career,” he said. “The land is a real possibility. He could learn to be a steward, perhaps even yours. Or perhaps be a farm worker, even a farmer.”

  “Perhaps a landowner,” she said. “My property is unentailed.”

  He lifted his arm from his eyes and turned his head to look at her. “You may yet be with child,” he said.

  “No.” She turned her head sharply away, alarmed to find the meadow blurring before her vision. No, she was not. There had been one week when she might have conceived, but she had not done so. She would never ever have a child of her own womb.

  “Ah,” he said softly after a few silent moments. “I am sorry, Eve.”

  “You need not be,” she said. “It would have complicated things hopelessly, would it not? You would have felt obliged to come here for a visit whenever you were in England on leave, and I would have felt obliged to let you come.”

  Another short silence.

  “That would not have been desirable,” he said.

  “No.”

  There was one small cloud floating across the sky—only one. But it found the sun and covered it for a few moments. Eve shivered in the sudden coolness.

  “I'll talk to Ned Bateman,” she said when the cloud had moved off. “My steward. About Davy, I mean.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, “I'll take Davy around the home farm tomorrow. I would like to see it myself. I know a thing or two about farming.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  There was another of those brief silences that had punctuated their conversation.

  “London at present is a place from which I would rather be absent,” he said. “When Wulf described the dinner we missed at Carlton House, I shuddered. Did you not too? Everyone talking stubbornly in different languages, no one understanding anyone else, the grand duchess, the only person who could have interpreted fully, refraining from doing so out of contempt for the Prince of Wales and a desire for his entertainment to fall flat upon its face, the queen prosing on forever and then killing dead whatever still survived of the evening by forcing everyone to make their formal obeisance to her in the drawing room after dinner, the Czar of Russia flirting indiscriminately with all the ladies and pouting because he was no longer the center of attention. There will only be more of the same to be endured as soon as I return to London. I would rather be here.”

  Just for tomorrow? For a few more days? For the rest of his leave?

  “Will you mind?” he asked.

  “No.” She was not at all sure whether she spoke the truth or lied. “No, not at all.”

  The children had come back—they had been squatting on the riverbank for some time. Muffin cuddled down beside Eve and nudged at her hand
with his wet nose while Becky went to stand beside Aidan.

  “Uncle Aidan,” she said, “I brought you something.”

  He sat up, and she set a smooth pebble in his hand, still wet from the riverbed.

  “For me?” he said, examining it closely before looking up at her. “I do believe it is the most precious gift I have ever been given. Thank you, sweetheart.”

  Eve was startled by the endearment. But Becky had skipped around the blanket to her side.

  “And one for you, Aunt Eve,” she said.

  It was a gift, Eve realized as she hugged the child, that would live among her most precious treasures for the rest of her life as a reminder of today, one of the happiest of her life.

  “I suppose,” Aidan said, “we had better get that horse back to the stable before it bursts from consuming so much grass.”

  Becky yawned hugely, and he stooped to scoop her up in one arm while hoisting up the picnic basket with the other hand.

  “You can bring the rods and everything else, lad,” he said to Davy. “We'll let Aunt Eve play lady.”

  Becky nestled her head on his shoulder and promptly fell asleep.

  CHAPTER XX

  AIDAN HAD NO IDEA HOW LONG HE INTENDED TO stay. He deliberately did not ask himself the question. He only knew that he did not wish to spend the rest of his leave in London, where life would be as hectic and as much focused upon military matters as it was when he was with his battalion. And Lindsey Hall had lost some of its appeal. It would seem empty and bleak without most of his brothers and sisters there—even Ralf had gone to London, according to Wulf.